City: St. Louis, MO

Category: Tours & Attractions

Telephone: (636) 451-3512

Description: Shaw Nature Reserve, an extension of the Missouri Botanical Garden, includes 2,500 acres of natural Ozark landscape and managed plant collections. Located 35 miles southwest of St. Louis, the nature reserve includes the Pinetum, a 55-acre park like expanse of meadows studded with conifers from around the world; and the Whitmire Wildflower Garden, a five-acre concentration of Missouri and eastern U.S. native wildflowers, accented by native grasses, shrubs, and trees. The Shaw Nature Reserve also contains 13 miles of hiking trails through a full array of Ozark Border landscapes, including floodplain forest, oak-hickory woods, glades, bluffs, tall-grass prairie, savanna, and marsh wetlands. The Joseph H. Bascom Manor House, an elegant brick mansion built in 1879, contains a variety of exhibits called People on the Land, which illustrates the broad environmental and conservation themes of the nature reserve’s mission. The Nature Reserve is open to hikers daily but the Visitor Center and Bascom House are closed on some major holidays. Children 12 and under are admitted free.